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LLSWORTH CALL, M. So, M. A., M. D. 




PUBLISHED BY 

THE MAMMOTH CAVE ESTATE. 



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COUfllEB-JOURNAL J05 PRINTING CO.. LOUISVILLE. 



MAMMOTH CAV! 

^T"HE wonderful work of water in sculpt i< 
\jJ surface of the earth is matter of common ob- 

Hill and valley, 
\ »n and water- 

have i» 
in intimate relation; 
so hard that it can forever 
resist the action of the stream; 
mountain mass so great that it 
ill not some time yield entirely to 
valley so deep it may noi 
graven deeper or even filled to top by the transport- 
ing power of running streams. These changes all 
occur on the surface, and from our familiarity with 
them fail, often, to engage our close attention. 

But there is no rock so dense that through it 

water will not pass; no union of particles so intimate 

but the secret, chemical processes of the world 

-ever them; no place where all condi- 




laws are so variable as in the underground world. 

The visitor to Mammoth Cave must not forge i 
surface world when he walks through its immense 
es, its magnificent avenues, its Titanic halls, its 
star-bedecked domes. On every hand he will 
a wealth of features which always emphasize the 
aspects of the outer world and explain them 
, He will see solution so slow tl 
is U!- of thousands of de« 

note crystallization so tedious that he will be 
driven to madness should he attempt to compass the 
years that have passed since the process bt 
Should he question theifossil forms which somet; 
thickly stud the cliffs^.nd ledges along which he will 
pass they might tell to him a story beside which the 
wildest creation of the Orient would appear but as 
a tale of the nursery. In a thousand ways will he 
be impressed with the persistency of Nature's force- 
ful methods. If he be a man accustomed to reflec- 
tion he will come to the upper world a wiser man; 
if he be of poetic turn the somber shades thi 
which he has just passed, the great avenues open- 
ing beyond into regions of infinite gloom, the lovely 
crystals "of purest ray serene" that re 




&y 



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into still another 

instead of revealing its out- 

f lines or a new beauty but 

-^i 'S§'^ Ij ■ ■ 1 ' «F tnen 

1 d,ttH»l '£ his fancy will take a new 

direction and his 
different tenor. 

Mammoth Cave owes 
its discovery to an acci- 
dent, so the story goes, 
which happened in the 
year 1809. It is the 
tory of a hunter 
and a bear, the pursue/and the pursued. The bear 
was wounded and sought its lair in a vain endeavor 
to escape. Hutchins, for such was the hunter's 
name, lost no time in acquainting others with this 
important discovery, and Mammoth Cave be 
both history and of science. It is str 

ry motives and that saltpetre, 
mi gunpowder and connected with 
• i . was the incentive that led to more 
!. The men who mi 
rich in nitre, are the men who firs- 



utside world any reliable information of the 
great extent of this now famous world's wonder. 
Albeit their stories savored of the wonderful to an 
extent that many pronounced them romance 
e of the cave that was really qui 
ae common property and the i mi ivern 

took its place among the great na • 
of earth. 

A visit to Mammoth Cave constitutes a unique 
rience in one's search of pleasure and the mar- 
ts. From the moment of arrival at the quaint 
old hostelry, which dates so far back toward the 
ruing of the century that it is really a pai 
ii story of the cavern, to the last backward 
which is always given when the top of the rough 
ay of rock, at the entrance, is reached on 
rn from the depths, there is continuous surpi 

experience, pleasant memories, ~ 
^ether unmixed with regret. Th~ 
surroundings are not very unlike 
those which the first visitors 
The old lumbeiing 
ich has given way 
the modern railway, with 
1; the tre< 




.of the forest are larger but just as numerous ; the 
wild flowers spring up as abundantly and liven 
the landscape as charmingly now as formerly; the 
wood! full of feathered songsters, the neigh-, 

boring river as prolific in brilliant and graceful fish, 
liffs which line its course as grand and glorious 
hen Hutchins first shot that famous bear. 
Within the cavern the changes which have oc- 
curred since the days of saltpetre mining are less 
conspicuous still. In every essential respect the 
visitor sees the same features, the same angles, the 
.tals — save where early Vandal hands have 
me of the alcoves and halls of their beautiful 
forms; the same springs gush forth from dark re- 
cesses, and the same -streams disappear with many 
a dash and reverberation into the same pits and 
darksome crevices. The very pipes and supports 
used by the workers in "peter-dirt" stand now as 
when left by them nearly a century ago. The 
famed houses in which the unfortunate consumptives 
sought relief from a malady which alone needed 
sunshine for momentary respite, but which no skill 
or art of man could stay, still stand on the left in 
died the Main Cave. The tracks 
>f patient oxen and ruts worn by wheel 



- piled high on either 

t the 
much-sought nitrate to the upper world. Rude 

phic sci '11 of Bishop, of 

Brantsford, of Miller and others who first sought to 
unravel the mysteries of its branching avenues or to 
sound the depths of its solitary 

ally, even yet, fragments of half-burned reeds, a 
lost moccasin, a wooden-bowl, tell of visits of abo- 
rigines long before foot of civilized man had awakened 
the echoes of the lofty domes. Change there has 
but it is so slowj so ■-■U'.ony2le^|^hat. 

impressions formed thfee-quarte 
are paralleled by those which ■ 
are awakened to-day. There 
is only that change which comes 
from wider acquaintance with 
the windings of the chamber 
into those that are new 
and formerly unknown, 
which makes 
the visitor despair of ever 
fully unraveling all 




same profusion, 
on every hand, for th 
has been pre in all its 

lal work 
nature. Th< >ver 

rivers and stairs leading up 
impassable cliffs, the iron 
guards along places of danger 
alone tell the visitor of 
work of man. 
er the great cavern in company 
with a chemist he will come forth well versed in 
Nature's secrets. For here he will learn how water 
charged with carbon dioxide has served as Nature's 
graving tools. On the roofs and walls he will dis- 
cover the effects which iron and manganese oxides 
yield on a background of gray limestone. He will 
learn something of crystallization and the beautiful 
forms which these masses of sulphate of lime and 
calcite assume. If he stop in the Fairy Grotto, or 
tarry along Gothic Avenue, or venture into some of 
the unfrequented passages miles away from the 




natural entrance, he will face enormous stala 

and tread upon massive stalagmites the I 

of which thousands of years back of the 

tian era. In Martha's Vineyard, beyond the 

rivers, he will see those wonderful botryoidal forms 

icite whii t* locality its name. If he 

ar within Crystal Avenue he will learn how 

wonderful acicular crystals of gypsum grow 

and spread out into a thousand fantastic forms, and 

simulate the flowers of the upper world, but whose 

tic in comparison. Now and then 

fanciful beauties growing in plain 

nee of the laws of gravitation and bending and 

twisting in a thousand devious ways. In the almost 

complete absence of water he will wonder how 

forms were originally put into solution, and 

how are reproduced those beautiful crystals 

h fall, as white and silently as flakes of snow, 

at a sudden loud sound or echo. He will wonder at 

thousands of cubic yards of solid rock which 

and when he returns to the 

rid and visits the laboratory of hi: 

the puny pr< 

It is impos less possible t»> 



t to visitors in 

tions 
of tli unintelligent its 

would I 
. or the marbl< 

ioth wall in's Dom 

a sto vho ha\ intimate 

acquaintance with Nature. The blind insects- 
beetles, crickets, mit< fish and 
crust the snow-white toadstools, 
all are nv i those who have never ques- 
1 the pli; / of vision. The naturalist 
will find hen life that are 

tebrate to worm, and 
Liquity and of life-law 
il only a natui 
may interpret. But if 
the visitor seeks the 
md and impressive, if 
there be attraction in Sty- 
blackness, if the un- 
nny noises accompa- 
rs fallin 





Is coming from __, . , •_ ' 



ar with a 

ly hu- 
rt, tllLMl 

THE ELEPHANTS 
VISltOrS HEADS. 

md from nd. 

most rem 
in this most remai 
mall portion of its whole course 

but this part is truly wonderful. 
At times the river flows with almost imperceptible 
current, while at other times it fills quite to th< 
tl River Hall, blotting i 
River Styx, both of which ly parts of the 

i in. It i- rsed by boats for 

a distance of quite half a mile, and a ride over its 
clear waters is one of the unique experiences of the 
else can it be duplicated. 



and then the roof rises rapidly away from the water 
>n his sul 
Nearly all the river is one vast 
niching avenues and side crevices, its 
tone rock, its ancient battlemented 
of every sound, no 
ind send it back int.. 

hnesses blended into 

ious harmony. Nowhere 

irth, or in it, can such rich tone, coming back 

me with ever diminishing volume as it rolls 

down mknown halls and is reflected from 

I chamber walls, be heard. Long experience 

on the part of the Avell-t rained guides enables the 

production of the right notes to bring forth the 

wonders of Echo River, and no visitor hears them 

sed with its glories. Time and again, 

for months, have we listened to these noble 

rberations until they have become a part of our 

musical natu 

Pei single rock to be found, as a 

is the Giant's Coffin, 
id fancy alike serve to make it attractive. 
Its m; , estimat 

I 




STAR CHAMBER. 




n, is 



: the 
and 

f was accomplished, 

away back in 
\ logic times, an avenue 
was revealed which 
alone had rendered 
. until William, the 
guide, found the Corkscrew, a visit to 
portions of the cavern. The ruck 
h the name of Giant's Coffin has well 

entirely of limestone, with a thick- 
ness of eighteen and a total length of forty-three 
The visitor winds around it on the usual way 
in which he goes to the "end of the C n the 

"The Standing Rocks" are not fai 
d from this part of the cavern and have 



t high. They were detached at the 
time and by the same causes, whatever they 
that made the Giant's Coffin a fact. But, in falling, 
struck upon theii rid sank deeply en 

the boti naintain that 

They an 

»re than 1 

nany interest- 
ing ai ic matter that 
require but little imagination to conceive them as 
simulating familiar objects. Near the end of the 
remarkable Pass of El Ghor— a tortuous, narrow, 
but lofty, channel which marks the work of one of 
the* latest of the underground streams — the walls 
above and on each side are one indescribable maze 
kite accumulations.^-Here, as indeed is true 

of all parts 
of Mam- 
moth Cave 
where crys- 
tallization is 
in progress, 
the under- 
ground trn- 




is not far below the surface of 
The characteristic phenomen 

ire, first,, the 

dripping of waters which only enter the channels 

i world at points near the 

it the upper lev* 

i 

>ne lay 

- 
id yielding readi! 

rock whiczh often ''the 

limit many I 

Rotunda, 

Audi Wenue, i 

half, mill d, in 

! is well worth th md toil, for In 

>f the 
in which stalactitic forma 



part in j 
to tli 

ed from its mirrored surfa lally, 

through some secret passage, the water finds a way 
to the Echo River, whence, in turn, it reaches the 
en River and again circulates in the world out- 
side. 

In many portions of those wonderfully intricate 
channels known as Spark's Avenue and Pensico 
Avenue, the tourist may hear reverberations of foot- 
falls and wonderfully sweet echoes of human voices 
coming apparently from the depths below. These 
points, several of which! are particularly excellent, 
are really crossings of his own passageway over 
others still beneath him. In one place in Pensico 
Avenue the listener actually stands above a dome 
YT frm m i --• w }i ' rh - as ne sounds a particular note, 

rves as a 

tic reson- 

: ^ox, and 

lakes up the vibra- 

tions of his voice 

only to send it back 

tuned and strength- 





eart? felt to ti 

I ions reach their maxi- 
mum amplitude ; closely listening 
one may hear the sweet volume 
of sound rolling along avenues . 
yet untrodden by human 
to be finally lost in the un- 
known depths. The cele- 
brated side passage knowr 
iOthic Avenue presents inten 
tractions which are of a 
uniqin ter. Among them are the stala 

which, abundant in this portion of the cavern, are 
the largest and most remarkable within its limits. 
Curious resemblances or historic and mythologic 
events together have conspired to furnish names to 
the largest of these. Cassar and Pompey, the Pil- 
lar of Hercules, the Oak Tree, the Bridal Cham- 
ber, the Elephants' Heads and the Wasps' Nests are 
among the names which the fancy of the visitor or 
the caprice of the guides has affixed to these relics 
of former water action. Except at a single locality 
this avenue, which is at the higher level of the cave, 
is quite dry, and little, if any, change is now in 



Beyond th , at the 

called Lovers' Leap, the avenue is quite closed by a 
vast mass of sandstone debris fallen from above. 
But down the steep hill at which the " short route' ' 
generally ends leads a pathway which passes 
through a narrow passage in the vertical wall to the 
left, fifty feet below, into Elbow Crevice — a portion 
of the cavern which should be seen by all visitors. 
Beyond the crevice lie the Cooling Tub, Vulcan's 
Forge, Napoleon's Dome, Annetta's Dome, Sha- 
Brook — in which alone are found the 
snow-white leeches — and several pits and domes 
but recently discovered. The sound of fall- 
ing waters coming through small passages to 
the right or left informs the visitor that in 
this portion of the cave the processes of disintegra- 
tion and solution are in active progress. From the 
entrance of Gothic Avenue to Annetta's Dome the 
visitor will have passed from the highest to the third 
I. Around him and near him are pits which 
d to the level of Echo River, which 
from this chaotic locality. A hun- 

that command one ; then 
in the rocks, fairy forms of bygone 
tell of life and sunshine ; and hard by this 




frail record of beauty 
a fossil story of ruin and 
death. The observer will 
iind record of a former 
orld of organisms with 
hose diminutive con 
$ only has he now intimate 
1 acquaintance. Here, in 
;eep and silence enshrined, 
they rest, small tattlers of 
ontinental secrets ! 
this portion of the cave the walls best exhibit 
those phenomena which) are always interpreted as 
meaning the attrition m matter carried along by 
running water. The \ are narrow, but 

they become broader below. In the dim light of the 
visitor's lamp the effect of a perspective drawing is 
produced on looking upward, and the roofs of the 
to be far away. Pebble 
hni layer of conglomerate far above, 
the pathway and tell the story of wear and denuda- 
tion. Animal life is n oindant in thi 
it the higher levels, but eno 
mstratethat no portion of 



Perhaps visitors to Mammoth Cave are mos' 
pressed with the lofty domes and deep pits which 
are found in some portions of this underground 
domain. Of those that are accessible to the visitor 
without great danger and fatigue the best known 
are Gorin's Dome, the Bottoml< 
ne, Napoleon's Dome, the Mae 
strom, and Scylia and Char 
dis, all but two of which ar< 
situated in that intricate an< 
wonderful portion called the 
Labyrinth. The fi 
named is viewed thro; 
a natural circular opening 
in the wall quite three 
fourths the way from tht 
bottom. Illuminated by the 

from a point still above that at 
visitor is stationed the effect of the brilliant lights 
on the walls beyond, white as alabaster, fluted 
and folded in a thousand curious and fantastic 
forms, is indescribably grand and impressive. 
Coupled with the great size of the space, every- 
where shading off into infinite gloom, is the roar of 







the splash of Lilliputian 



if seen in the dry season. Below, but beyond 
observation, runs a portion of Echo River- into 
which, from a station high above that occupied by 
the guide, it is possible to throw stones the fall of 
which awakens ten thousand sounds and echoes. 
Stalactitic matter, of purest white, lends variety 
to the vertical walls ; where this is wanting the 
method of work of falling water, in bygone ages, 
is clearly seen. Not far away is the Bottomless 
Pit, and above it, rising sheer to the topmost level 
of the cavern, is Shelby's Dome, named for tjhe first 
Governor of Kentucky. Its bottom, for notwith- 
standing its name it i has one, is nearly two hun- 
dred feet below the^ level at which the observer 
stands. For many years it was an insurmountable 
obstacle to further exploration in this direction until 
Bishop, the original explorer of the cave, finally 
crossed it on a cedar sapling, but not without great 
danger. 

This pi1 of three, the other two b 

Scylla and Charybdis, well-named and in the rela- 
tion to each other of those celebrated dangers of 
mytlv two pits are not to-be 

by a de\ 







MARTHA WASHINGTON'S STATUE. 



.€** 



Hail, nearly a mile distant. But of all 
which the visitor sees, that called Mammoth Dome 
is the largest and most impressive. From t< 
bottom the distance is nearly two hundred and 
the end, the Ruins of Kai 
formerly called the Ei 
ian Temples, stand out 
>ld relief. These 
it columns indeed 
closely resemble the 
works of art of some 
long-lost un< I 
race, and it doe 

V^-^~*P^ M It"^* !re a ver y vivid 

™ ^ imagination to see the 
i r recesses and 
itoried walls the scene 
weird activity or to 
nagine tnerci 1 "with myriads of gn< 

sprites upon whose labors the visitor i 
unwelcome intruder. The Mammoth Dome should 
be visited by every person who desires to see 
water at work and completing a task begun 
away back in earth's history. The shadows on 
the walls, fitfully moving with change of light and 





I, dispel i 

lamp- 
by tl 

, first voiced by Dante : * EAD °1 

•f ECHO RIVER 

iere do the hideous harpies make their nests, 
Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades 
announcement of impending doom; 
Broi iave they, and necks and faces.human, 

And feet with claws, and their great bellies iledged." 

Bu -ible? Why att 

beyond the skill of any? Al< 
in such a place, one sees only spirit life 
canny forms; sees only the deformed and uncouth, 
thestran himerical. The very stillness be- 

comes eloquent and the blackness populous; the 
dripping of water chants a thousand poems. 
Night and Solitude! Ye are the peopled; the fu 
life!" 



NEAR THE MAIN LINE OF THE LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLi 
RAILROAD, 90 MILES SOUTH OF LOUISVILLE, KY. BRANCH 
OAD DIRECT TO THE CAVE FROM 
GLASGOW JUNCTION. 




LLOWED ON ALL TICKETS WITHIN THEIR LIMITS, AND ON 
- TS THE DESTINATION OF WHICH IS A POINT ON THE 
ISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD REGARDLESS 
1MIT. 



TMORE, Gen'l Pass. Agent, 

isville, Ky„ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 570 661 



9*2 <■ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 570 661 % 



